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Pro-Business Bipartisanship Brings
SCIENX Plant to Upstate N.Y. Politics may make for strange bedfellows. A major New York site selection decision, however, made for surprisingly cordial ones.
A Business Card That Meant Business
Consider Jeffrey Phelan’s business card, the catalyst that set Scienx on the road leading to Rome. That card came into play when Scienx President Phelan attended a fundraiser earlier this year in Washington, D.C., where parent firm Orasee has a Fairfax, Va., office. Labs Dovetail with Scienx’s Niche
SCIENX, though, rapidly learned more about New York’s Rome. Until then, the location search had focused on Georgia (where Orasee has its Atlanta-metro area headquarters), Virginia and the U. K. Manufacturing Legacy Fits Focus
The area’s industrial tradition also fits SCIENX’s focus. ‘They Really Get It’
Phelan and a dozen other SCIENX managers will relocate their families to Rome. – Jack Lyne
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The courtship of strong regional airlines by business coalitions and economic development groups in second- and third-tier cities has been well-documented. But they don’t say yes to just any old offer. Asked by Site Selection to describe how he fields such queries, Tim Hoeksema, chairman of both Midwest Express Airlines and the community development group Spirit of Milwaukee, says, “We have been approached by mayors and airport managers and business leaders about coming [to their communities] to do what we do in Milwaukee. We have had companies guarantee market share on certain routes. But frankly, although we are talking to some communities about some startup help, if it doesn’t work in the long run, then it’s not good for either party. There are some things going on where a community guarantees a fair amount of dollars to Airline X to come in, then, lo and behold, the first six months they end up paying a lot of money,” he says. “They say, ‘Oh, that’s okay, the next six months will be better,” and then the next six months aren’t, and a year or two down the road, somebody’s paying a lot of money and they’re not very happy. You have to analyze the market. If there are startup incentives to get over the startup curve, that’s fine, but we haven’t taken the tack of looking for long-term incentives from any community.”
More than 100 years ago, James Hardie emigrated from Scotland to Australia and founded an animal hide and tanning business. Today, the company that bears his name is finding success in another country, the United States, and with another type of skin — exterior and interior building materials. During the fall of 2002, the company announced two major expansions: a US$15.3-million capacity upgrade at its Blandon, Pa., fiber cement siding plant, and a $27-million investment in a new fiber cement panel production line at its plant in Waxahachie, Tex. The company just completed yet another production expansion at its plant in Peru, Ill. All told, the three growth spurts will enable an annual materials capacity increase of some 440 million sq. ft. (40.9 million sq. m.) of building materials. The company also operates plants in Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
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West Coast Ports Problems Slowly Untangle
When ships that normally turn around in two days instead sit for two weeks, the worldwide bottleneck that results might seem insurmountable. That’s what faced West Coast ports during the October lockout of longshoremen. As an agreement was finally ratified by both sides in late November, the mess, like an unwelcome cold front, had already begun to move back out to sea. |
Hartsville, Tenn., beat out more than 40 other locations throughout the United States to secure a commitment for a $1.1-billion uranium enrichment plant to be constructed by Louisiana Energy Services (LES). LES had also signed a right-of-first-refusal at the Bellefonte nuclear power plant site near Hollywood, Ala., before publicly naming Hartsville as the company’s first choice. Both locations are properties formerly owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The facility will create an estimated 300 permanent jobs in the Middle Tennessee city of only some 2,400 residents.
“This will be an essential contribution to U.S. energy security by ensuring a competitive domestic source of enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear facilities,” said George E. Dials, president and CEO of LES. “This will be the first uranium enrichment plant in the U.S. with state-of-the-art technology, capable of minimal environmental impact.”
Hartsville, known for its historic Civil War battlefield, “came out ahead on our objective scoring system” for evaluating possible sites for the plant, said LES Chairman Pat Upson. “We used a decision analysis model to screen or score more than 40 sites throughout the U.S. Both Hartsville and Bellefonte scored very high on the technical criteria. Hartsville scored somewhat higher cumulatively and has some business and environmental benefits.”
LES, headquartered in Washington, D.C., comprises three general partners: Urenco, Cameco and Westinghouse. Three major U.S. utility companies — Exelon, Duke and Entergy — are limited partners in the company. These utilities combined represent nearly one-third of all U.S. nuclear power capacity.
Major Shippers Double Up
In September 2002, United Parcel Service announced it had completed its $1-billion expansion of the UPS Worldport air facility in Louisville, Ky., a 4-million sq.-ft. (371,600-sq.-m.) project that allows the processing of 304,000 packages an hour, or double its former capacity. With its 23,000 employees, UPS is a leader in Kentucky shipping, but it’s not the only one growing. The DHL Worldwide Express U.S. hub at Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is undergoing its own doubling in size, a $200-million project. And on the West Coast, UPS was at it again, completing a $44-million air hub expansion in November. |
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After breaking ground on July 31, construction was completed in Mid-November on a 390,000-sq.-ft. (36,231-sq.-m.) northeast distribution center outside Scranton, Pa., for appliance maker Maytag Corp. The build-to-suit structure, completed on a fast track by LZA Associates and The Norwood Co., is the first in First Industrial Realty Trust’s planned 4.5 million-sq.-ft. (418,050-sq.-m.) Covington Industrial Park, on 860 acres (348 hectares) near Interstate 81.
The site work and structure have been planned to permit an additional 150,000 sq. ft. (13,935 sq. m.) of expansion space. The project is just one part of a national fulfillment infrastructure consolidation by Newton, Ia.-based Maytag in the wake of its purchase of fellow Iowa company Amana in August 2001.
In the meantime, the company’s manufacturing base continues to grow outside the U.S., most recently through the addition of subassembly operations in Reynosa, Mexico. “Our expansion in Reynosa is a logical extension of our ongoing cost reduction initiatives in manufacturing, procurement and distribution,” said Maytag major appliance division President William L. Beer in July 2002. “From our existing Reynosa operation, we are receiving meaningful cost savings with the delivery of high-quality subassembly parts that are required in our finished products. This latest investment will continue to improve the efficiency of our manufacturing operations in the United States.”
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Tissue Plant Coming to Northern Alabama
Swedish firm SCA (Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget), based in Stockholm, will build a 1.3-million-sq.-ft. (120,770-sq.-m.) converting, paper-making and distribution plant on a 700-acre (283-hectare) greenfield site at the Barton Riverfront Industrial Park in Colbert County, Ala., near Muscle Shoals. The $240-million plant will employ 400 by the end of 2003, say comp any officials, who launched construction in November. But like many new plants today, the move is one of consolidation, as SCA will concurrently close smaller plants in Atlanta and LaGrange, Ga., and Brattleboro, Vt.
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